


Agony & Elegance

by I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own



Series: Evil Author Day 2019 [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Depression, EAD, Evil Author Day, Panic Attacks, Post You Are Not Your Own, Self Harm, discussion of suicide attempts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 03:39:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17779883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own/pseuds/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own
Summary: You can hide, push, and shove things down as far as you can, and maybe just a little bit more, but eventually they'll see the light of day, whether you want them to, or not.





	Agony & Elegance

**Author's Note:**

> My second offering for Evil Author Day. 
> 
> The Johnathan and Lilith story lines do not occur in this timeline. Valentine gets defeated and the guys and gals get to have a little bit of goddamn peace as far as big bads go... 
> 
> There are currently two version of this fic. One is Second Person, and one is Third. This is the Third person, I don't know if I'll post the Second Person as it got really hard to write at the Alec part... (and I was crying a lot...) 
> 
> Whether I'll post a completed version of this fic, I don't know at this point, and whether the completed version has these exact same scenes in it, I don't know that either... that's the joys of Evil Author Day. :)

_It's the dark of night and I'm at the end of the line,_  
_Alone in my head and waiting for something divine,_  
_To answer me._  
_Drowning for silence the internal violence, I pray,_  
_To make it through._  
_The stormwinds are growing as my dreams are blowing away,_  
_Just like you._  
~Just Like You, Celldweller

* * *

_It’s nothing. It’s nothing. It’s nothing._ The voice whispers over and over in his mind, and he wants to listen to it, wants to trust it like he does with almost anything else, but this time that little voice is wrong. _It’s nothing. It’s nothing._

It’s everything and, this time, he knows it.

 _It’s nothing. You’ve been here before, experienced this before. It’s. **Nothing**. _The little voice whispers to him, tries to ensnare him, but no matter how much he wants to believe it, wants to give in, he can’t. Because he knows the truth.

 _It’s everything. This is different, new, uncharted territory. I’ve never been here before. This is everything._ He says back to that little voice, that little voice that he’s trusted for so long, and believed in for such a long time.

 _You’ll be okay._ That little voice says, but he doesn’t believe it.

 _I don’t think so._ He replies, looking down at his arm, gently tracing his fingers over the symbol he’s burnt into his flesh. It’s aptly named.

**_“Mama?”_ **

The memory shoots through him, dragging him, pulling him back to the place and time he wants nothing more than to forget. But he’ll never forget, not now.

 _It’s okay._ He laughs, shaken by the broken sound that bursts forth from between his lips, like a wounded animal, and it’s fitting.

“Don’t you dare fall off of that” a familiar voice sounds beside him, wrenching him from the last remnants of the memory, and he glances to his side to smile at his long dead friend.

“It’d bring me closer to you.” He answers, a rush of excitement and want flows through him in a way he knows is wrong. But the things that bring him joy these days are morbid, he already knows this.

_It’s okay._

“I didn’t die so you could throw your life away.” They say, crossing their arms over their chest. He looks away, feels that pain in his chest he always gets when he thinks of them, of how they died.

“You died for nothing.” He tells them, looking down into the water below as it crashes against the foundations of the very structure that stands between him and certain death. “So will I.”

“Magnus-“

“Don’t, Ragnor. Just-just don’t.” Magnus whispers, shaking his head and waving his hands in front of him in denial, as if they’ll ward away whatever Ragnor has to say to him. “ _Fuck_. I’ll go home.” He mutters, bringing his hands up to craft the portal that deposits him gently on his bed, staring up at the same ceiling he’s been looking at for hours these last few days. The same ceiling that’s watched over him as his dreams crumbled to dust.

If only the portal could have taken him but left behind the desolation that’s threatening to consume him whole.

“This isn’t much better, you know.”

“Fuck off, Ragnor.” He snaps, glaring up at the ceiling and folding his arms over his chest, but it’s not enough, and he curls into himself as suddenly he’s crying and can’t seem to stop. This is how his emotions are these days, suddenly up, suddenly down, suddenly nothing at all.

“Dearest.”

“I’ll be fine.” He sobs, refusing to look at his long dead friend or think of the comforting hugs he can no longer provide him. “I’ll be fine.”

They both know that it is a lie.

* * *

Magnus keeps making questionable decisions and doing questionable things, and suddenly it loses him his position as High Warlock and for the longest time he wonders if any of it was worth it, or if he should have ignored Ragnor that day and thrown himself to the mercy of the water. Surely no-one is supposed to live the way he is living? surely what he is doing cannot be called ‘living’?

He doesn’t let Alec see, or he tries not to, but Alec suddenly starts looking closer and Magnus can’t hide from him anymore. The symbol on his arm has been carved and burnt in so many times that he thinks his forearm is more scar tissue than anything else and one day, while he’s lost in the memories, in the places and the times he’d rather not be, so drunk he’s unable to pull himself back. That’s when Alec finds him, finds the scar, finally sees the cracks that he’s tried so desperately to hide.

“Magnus.” Alec’s sharp voice pulls him out. “What is this?” he exclaims, then he’s roughly shaking Magnus, he looks so terrified and angry and grief stricken, and his grip on Magnus’ arm is strong. For a moment Magnus’ thinks he might just break the bone, he wonders if that would even be a bad thing, before Alec suddenly lets go.

“I-“ _can’t explain._ Magnus looks down at the scar on his wrist, it’s quite a beautiful rune, he’s thought so ever since he first saw it, even when he was screaming. _Agony and elegance._ He laughs at his own barely coherent thought, tears streaming from his eyes, because doesn’t that just describe him to a T? _Agony and elegance._

“Magnus?” He’s always questioned the intelligence of dating someone so many centuries his junior, but before now, Alec has never sounded so small, so young, so terrified.

“I love you.” Magnus blurts out, not meaning to speak the words at all, but meaning them all the same. “I’m a fool for not being able to walk away. For not ending it when I saw the darkness in you.” He explains, refusing to look at Alec, at his beautiful lover. “Defender of Man, but not of Warlocks. That’s ‘kay. I love you anyway.” He promises, so earnestly, even as he looks like the words are a knife to his heart. “Always will.” He mumbles, feeling suddenly so exhausted he can barely keep his eyes open. He reaches out and grips Alec’s arm tightly when the Shadowhunter moves to stand. “Don’t you dare leave me again, you bastard.” Is all he manages to say, before the darkness rises to claim him.

* * *

Alec watches Magnus sleep and breathes through the pain that lances through him, that twirls its way _slowly_ through his heart and seems to run through his blood, all the way around his body. With trembling hands, he carefully grabs Magnus’ forearm, brings it up to his lips and gently kisses the scar, then runs his fingers over the scar tissue, tries to push down the fear and panic and _grief_ that rises within him at the sight of it.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers, curls himself around Magnus and clings tightly to him. “I love you. I’ll fix this.”

“He doesn’t need you to fix this.” An unfamiliar voice sounds, Alec almost jumps out of his own skin, but catches sight of the ghost standing across from him, a gift given down his bloodline from Cecily Herondale.

“Ragnor Fell.” Alec murmurs, as the ghost gently settles on the edge of the bed, he inclines his head at Alec.

“In the ghostly flesh.” The apparition states, with a little smirk on his face, then the smirk disappears and suddenly Alec finds himself staring into the eyes of the former High Warlock of London. “Sweet little Magnus doesn’t need you to fix his problems. What Magnus needs is someone who is willing to see beneath the multitude of masks he likes to paint all over his beautiful face. He needs someone to understand that he has demons in his past and that often he will choose to fight them on his own. What Magnus needs is someone to understand that he will give absolutely everything he has if it means those that he loves will live, will continue on even if he does not. What he needs is someone who will try not to put him in a position where he has to.”

“He’s broken.”

“We’re all broken.” Ragnor answers, with a sad smile and a shrug of his shoulders. “Every single one of us. Magnus doesn’t need you to put him back together, that’s a losing battle. What Magnus needs is for you to stand at his side and try not to shatter the little piece of him that remains. It’s the same courtesy he’ll extend to you. He’s a drowning man, he doesn’t need you to jump into the water and drown with him, Alexander, he just needs you to throw him a life line. Listen to him, care for him, don’t betray him and you’ll do fine.”

“I’ve already betrayed him. I hurt him, a lot.” Alec whispers, closes his eyes against the memories.

“Make amends.” Ragnor tells him as if it is the simplest thing in the world. “He forgives you, or at the very least he’s willing to, otherwise you wouldn’t still be here, and he would have left town the moment he was no longer High Warlock.”

“He said he should have walked away.”

“And he should have, but that’s probably my fault. I told him that if he found true love, he should cling to it, never let it go.” Ragnor explains with a cringe. “He will never let you go, Alexander. But I fear if you hurt him again, you’ll destroy him. There’s not enough left of him to survive something like that again. Especially without me there to guide him back to solid ground.”

“Are you…? He’s not…? But…” Alec physically jolts at the implication, feels so shocked he can’t find the words he wants to speak.

“Camille wormed her way into Magnus’ heart by saving him when he tried to throw himself off the Blackfriars Bridge.” Ragnor states, emotionless and no-nonsense, it doesn’t prevent the gasp that wrenches itself from Alec, doesn’t stop the fear as Alec wraps his arms tighter around his sleeping love. “It is my understanding of such things that you never stop being suicidal, it just loses its appeal, or other things take precedence in your mind, but it is always, _always_ an option. Once you put it on the table, it is  _always_ on the table. Especially when you fall into your darkest days.”

“I understand. I’ll be careful.” Alec promises, determined and resolved. His Magnus will live to be the last person on the entire planet if he has anything to say about it.

“Good.” Ragnor murmurs, before fading away. Alec breathes in deeply and closes his eyes, clutching as tightly to Magnus as he can.

“I love you. I’ll be careful. I’ll protect you from everything, even me and my own stupidity if I have to. I promise.”

* * *

The first thing Magnus becomes aware of is the horrible, screaming party going on his mind, he groans, reaching his right hand out blindly and calling with his magic for the hangover cure he’s been brewing for as long as he can remember. He swallows it down quickly and then becomes aware of another fact, one that causes him to tense up for just a few moments as the haze lifts from his mind. He notices the warm, strong arm wrapped around his waist and a warm hand gently holding onto his left wrist, right over his latest scar.

“Shit.” He murmurs, pulling gently from Alec’s grip, checking that Alec stays asleep as he crawls out of the bed. As he goes, a sick kind of panic builds within him and he pauses in the doorway, breathing heavily and tries to see through the tears suddenly blurring his vision. He stumbles and falls against the door frame and clenches his eyes shut, sucking in desperate breath after desperate breath, hysteria still building within him, until he feels those familiar arms wrapping around him again.

“I love you. Please talk to me.” Alec’s soothing voice whispers in his ear and Magnus leans against him, even though he wants to pull away. He chokes on a sob, turns in Alec’s arms and buries his face against Alec’s chest and for the first time since that day, he truly lets himself feel the fear, the anger and grief, and the multitude of other emotions he’s been pushing down, shoving deeper and deeper within him, planning never to deal with at all, even though his emotions have become ever more unstable. All the while, Alec whispers into his ear that he loves him.

“You weren’t meant to see.” Magnus whispers, shaking his head, feels the way Alec shrugs, his arms not breaking their hold on him.

"I know."

* * *

_Out at the edge the moonlight reflecting from me,_  
_The collapse of the waves echoing eternally, as I cry out._  
_If I'm living my life then why does it feel like my heart,_  
_will break in two?_  
_Failure is calling as my dreams are falling apart,_  
_Just like you._  
~Just Like You, Celldweller

**Author's Note:**

> I headcanon that, aside from that one time with Camille, Ragnor was always responsible for grounding Magnus, for dragging him kicking and screaming back onto solid ground when Magnus just wanted to throw himself at the mercy of gravity and the ocean. That's when Cat would burst in and mother Magnus until he's able to stand up on his own again...


End file.
